This invention relates in general to electronic timing devices and, in particular, to electronic parking meters.
Both mechanical and electronic parking meters are well known in the prior art and are typically of the type which are responsive to the insertion of a coin to begin timing an interval for which a vehicle may be parked in an appropriate space associated with the parking meter. The timing interval is typically determined by the number and value of the coins which are inserted into the parking meter. The parking meters can be associated with a single parking space or a single parking meter may be used for an entire lot of multiple spaces.
The more recently developed electronic parking meters are an improvement over the older type mechanical parking meters. The electronic parking meters are typically more reliable and require less service. However, many of these electronic type parking meters still employ portions of them which are mechanical.
It is a feature of the present invention to provide an all eletronic parking meter which is more dependable, has a greater variety of features, and is more economical to manufacture than prior art parking meters. It is an advantage of the present invention that the novel electronic parking meter can be utilized with a hand-held auditor for programming parking meters and also gathering data from the parking meter and which can be connected to the parking meter directly by means for a cable or can be interfaced to the parking meter through an infrared transmission system. It is another feature of the present invention that a sonar range finder may be utilized as a part of the electronic parking meter for detecting the presence or absence of a vehicle in a space associated with the meter.